Infinite Loop —

Hands-on: stay dry with weather apps for iOS

There's a downpour of weather apps for iOS, and we took a look at four.

Look out the window. See the sun? Hopefully you can walk outside and actually feel it in real life. But if you're unfortunate enough to be surprised with rain, snow, or whatever else mother nature can throw at you, you'll regret not checking the weather on your iOS device before leaving the house. "But there are so many apps to choose from! Which one is the best?" you may ask. For the most part, they're all quite similar, but their implementations can vary wildly. A good user interface is now more than just a checkbox on a comparison chart; it's the main selling point. Weather apps are a designer's playground, and here are some of the best of the bunch.

Dark Sky

Dark Sky's simple interface hides a few nuggets of good design. With a well-done splash page, it shows the weather forecast as well as a graph with predicted precipitation. Dark Sky shows one city at a time, but keeps a history of searched cities for you to jump back to whenever you want, with a big location button bringing the forecast back to your neck of the woods. A radar button hovers at the top, inconveniently located under the notifications tab.

Dark Sky's accurate radar is rendered beautifully, making large storms look like works of blue and purple art. Wind direction is overlaid onto storms, and a graph of time and precipitation sits at the bottom of the map. No storms happening in your area? Dark Sky knows clear skies can be boring, and will offer a look at a storm in another area (you know, for fun). While it doesn't offer a weekly forecast, it does provide weather information for the remaining hours of the day.

Dark Sky also features notification updates for "significant rain or snow at your current location." You can set precipitation threshold for notifications and do-not-disturb time, though you cannot set it for individual days.

Dark Sky's focus on the immediate forecast is perfect for those leaving the house and thinking about reaching for that Disney World poncho. The app is well thought-out, intuitive, and even self-referential at times. And with such accuracy, you can rest assured knowing you won't get caught in the rain.

WthrDial

WthrDial looks to be the lovechild between a Braun radio and Xcode. A half-hidden dial with clouds and suns spins as it grabs forecast data, with the current outlook landing dead center on a red line. There's a full 7-day forecast on the bottom of the screen, with an hourly forecast available underneath. At first glance, WthrDial seems to be the app for designers and those who love them. But a few features that come standard on other apps are missing. Like WeatherNeue (discussed below), WthrDial only grabs the forecast for your location. And unlike Dark Sky, it offers no radar or notification support.

It looks good for the most part, but the readability of the forecast at the bottom of the screen needs improvement. (One shade of grey is difficult to discern from the other behind it.) There are no settings to speak of, save for Farenheit and Celsius, and refreshing the forecast data is about the only thing you can do. WthrDial looks promising, but its elegant interface can’t distract me from the fact that it needs the addition of some basic features.

WeatherNeue

WeatherNeue is pretty clear and offers both precipitation and wind direction. Other than that, it's pretty bland.

Patrick Austin

WeatherNeue’s interface suggests a compromise between information and minimalism. All the details of your forecast are displayed neatly, with secondary pieces of information being displayed as smaller, less important bits. But with a slogan like “a minimalistic weather app that shows just the information you want," it seems the app broke its first rule halfway down the screen. It shows wind speed and direction, chance of precipitation, and a three-day forecast. Entering a location manually is out of the question, as WeatherNeue pulls its data from your current location. Restricting my weather forecasts to where I am can be annoying, however, as my location data often bleeds over into the town next door. It’s not a big deal, but there are many times when I want location data for a particular area rather than where I’m currently stationed.

WeatherNeue’s customizable aspect is simply a preset selection of colors ranging from orange to a more nostalgic LCD green. With weather apps being so open to a designer's interpretation, it's hard to tell whether WeatherNeue took the easy way out by using a popular font to make up for its simplicity. WeatherNeue is a different, albeit basic, take on your standard weather app—it isn't uninspiring, but I doubt it would garner any design awards.

Solar

Solar's unique take on the weather has me staring at my iPhone and hoping a purple thunderstorm rolls through.

Patrick Austin

Solar has a decidedly Metro (excuse me, Modern UI) appeal that brings Windows Phone’s panoramic interface to iOS. Along with this interface comes a unique way of displaying the forecast: color. Using color temperature as an indication of the weather results in a more visually pleasing and simpler app, though there's certainly room for improvement. In 90-degree weather, the screen should look like a blazing inferno, while in cooler temperatures, it should resemble the softer shades of blue and green. In practice, however, the results aren't always so accurate. When trying to match the color to the temperature, I was consistently about 10 degrees off. But the learning curve isn’t too steep, and within a few days I was only about 5 degrees off. Tapping the screen gave me the exact temperature to soothe the compulsive behavior within.

You can add a seemingly unlimited number cities and zip codes (I stopped at 14). Swiping upward in a city moves the clock forward, giving you estimates on the weather up to 24 hours in advance, while swiping down gives you a three-day forecast represented by highs, lows, and the predicted weather. You can tap a city to zoom in, and can pinch it to zoom out to your rearrangeable quadrants of towns.

One issue I found is in the prediction of the weather itself. Looking at a location in two different apps, I noticed that one showed me the light rain falling on a city in Georgia, while Solar only stated “mostly cloudy" for the same city. When I checked in with Georgia about 15 minutes later, however, it had updated to show the rainy outlook. So while this discrepancy is not the end of the world, it could mean bad things for your leather shoes.

All of these weather apps have their strengths and weaknesses, and in the end it all boils down to your personal preference. Whether you're a minimalist or statistician, there’s an app for all of your tropospheric needs. But when that moment of truth comes, the result will remain the same. You’ll always forget your umbrella, and your coworkers will always laugh at the newspaper over your head.

I'm trying to figure out why three apps, all with rather glaring deficiencies in features, are highlighted, while some of the most popular apps like Weather Channel and Weather Underground, aren't mentioned. Maybe if this article was on weather apps that you might have overlooked, I could see the three apps selected as a good choice. But if it's just a list of some of the best weather apps, the three selected are a very poor choice.

I'm trying to figure out why three apps, all with rather glaring deficiencies in features, are highlighted, while some of the most popular apps like Weather Channel and Weather Underground, aren't mentioned. Maybe if this article was on weather apps that you might have overlooked, I could see the three apps selected as a good choice. But if it's just a list of some of the best weather apps, the three selected are a very poor choice.

Well the weather channel app has been terrible for a while and is just starting to get usable again. And wunderground just got bought by the weather channel so will probably suck soon enough.

Here are a few opinions on Android apps:--on my old, slow Android phone I thought that the Weather Channel and Accuweather apps were pigs--I still like the HTC Sense weather app the best. --I should try some other apps. Any suggestions?

It only works real well for Australia, but I really like the Pocket Weather app - especially overlaying your location onto the radar map so you can see if you're going to be drenched or not! Degrees seems to be the best for Canada.

RadarScope is great for showing raw feeds of all the available NWS and Airport radar data, including SuperRes and Velocity data. It's nice to be able to view raw velocity data to see the area of concern when a tornado warning is issued. And it loads everything very quickly, even on a slow connection (like you get when the power goes out during a storm).

I'm rather fond of 'MyRadar'. It's a free app, but if you buy it, it'll remove the advertising, and you can add NWS Warnings and a Hurricane tracker to it if you want those upgrades. Those upgrades are a bit pricey though.

It would have been nice for international readers to have noted which apps work where. For example, DarkSky sounds great until you find out that it only works in the USA... I'm in the UK and have found that a number of weather apps are limited to the US. Still looking for a good one...

RadarScope is great for showing raw feeds of all the available NWS and Airport radar data, including SuperRes and Velocity data. It's nice to be able to view raw velocity data to see the area of concern when a tornado warning is issued. And it loads everything very quickly, even on a slow connection (like you get when the power goes out during a storm).

If I remember correctly, RadarScope is a $9.99 app. Do you feel it's worth that much? Lots of free apps give you radar images after all.

I also love Dark Sky! Pre-iOS5, I had Farenheit on my home screen because it used the notification bubble to show the current temperature in your area. Now I use the Notification Center weather to see the forecast and Dark Sky to check for immediate precipitation if it's that kind of day. It actually helped this last Sunday, crazy rain but Dark Sky said it'd drop down to drizzle in 30 minutes. Made the drive home a lot more comfortable!

RadarScope is great for showing raw feeds of all the available NWS and Airport radar data, including SuperRes and Velocity data. It's nice to be able to view raw velocity data to see the area of concern when a tornado warning is issued. And it loads everything very quickly, even on a slow connection (like you get when the power goes out during a storm).

Yeah, RadarScope is the "granddaddy" of radar apps for weather nerds, although a little spendy @ $9.99.

I use NOAA Radar US which is nearly as complete, but a fraction of the price.

Personally, I favor WeatherBug for drawing current conditions data from local weather stations. There is pronounced variation in conditions across NYC, so I appreciate being able to get data from a school just a few blocks away.

If you bicycle or do anything outdoors, DarkSky is a must buy. Its eerily accurate one hour forecasts ("Rain starting in 14 minutes, stopping after 25 minutes") based on your precise location are perfect for letting you know when a good time to go outside is. And also serve to point out how useless a forecast like "30% chance of rain today in city X" really is when it comes to actually planning something.

Since I've had darksky, there have been 2-3 occasions where I normally would not have gone for a ride based on the dark clouds...but because DS said no rain for an hour, I went. And stayed dry.

Honestly the state of weather apps and websites is pretty poor. After spending far to much time searching around one day I finally came to the conclusion that the NOAA website is far and away the best. Good weekly forecast with a detailed graph for hourly information. Why a 3rd party hasn't been able to repackage this into an even better interface I have no idea.

I've been using the Wunderground.com app, "Weather", for a few years now. It works well, gives lots of information, including forecasts, works for multiple cities, and has great motion satellite views!

Honestly the state of weather apps and websites is pretty poor. After spending far to much time searching around one day I finally came to the conclusion that the NOAA website is far and away the best. Good weekly forecast with a detailed graph for hourly information. Why a 3rd party hasn't been able to repackage this into an even better interface I have no idea.

Yep. I use Dark Sky for next-hour rain info and the NOAA website for everything else.

iMap Weather Radio, been using it for maybe 2 years. Limited actual weather "reporting" features compared to some others (just a basic text blob about upcoming conditions, not hourly granular), but its weather alterting system for storms and other weather events seems second to none that I;ve tested, the map data is granular, configurable, and has numerous layers you can control,, and it looks good. Oh, and it;s free (last I checked). Forcast can be received via audio, as can all weather and non-weather related alerts. It runs in the background using extremely little power, and detects weather accurately as you move about the map, updating critical status in near real time based on your location.

I still use weather channel's weather app for getting the daily and hourly forecast, but as far as staying abreast of major weather conditions, or looking at maps, I've not found anything better.

Disclaimer: after reading this, it sounds very much the sales pitch. I am not in any way associated with ANY app develioper or firm hosting any app at all in Apple's store, nor am i paid nor benefit in any way from my comments above.

I'm a big fan of the weather app by Weather Underground (http://www.wunderground.com). 7-day forecast, textual descriptions of the weather (like a weatherman would read off), hourly forecast, and a Google Maps integrated radar are all included. I find it to be more accurate than other weather apps too, because they source both public and private weather stations for their data.

There was some app in Google Play that does this, it alerts you when it might rain. As someone who likes to leave his top down (or windows open) this was immensely useful on when I should go out and close up the car.

Weatherbug and TheWeatherChannel were both horrible, unstable messes. I flitted across weather apps until I finally settled on Swackett. It's cute and quick, it has radar imagery, hourly and daily forecasts, and notifications for severe weather.

I personally like My-Cast Weather Radar. It's $3.99, but worth it. It has all the info, great map features with various overlays and pinch-to-zoom in and out. Plus severe weather alerts.

My-Cast is what I've used for a while as well. My only major regret with the app is that it doesn't seem to do any local caching, so data needs to be reloaded from the network not merely every launch, but even while panning around the map during the same run. It's less smooth then it could be. In terms of functionality though it definitely does the job, and seems to do a much better job in terms of maps and presenting data then any others I've yet tried.

DarkSky should be paying me commission. I swear I've sold at least 10 copies on their behalf.

It really is the future of short term weather prediction. If you do any outdoor activities, DarkSky is a must have. It has revolutionized personal weather prediction and it doesn't seem that the masses have noticed yet. If you aren't using DarkSky, you're completely oblivious to accurate rain prediction. Seriously, it is absolutely revolutionary for mountain bikers like me in rainy climates. Now I know with near certainty, exactly when storms will being passing over my exactly location.

I use the one that came installed on the OS. Give me a general indicator of the outside conditions via icon (sun - clouds - rain - lightening) - high and low average temperatures - week long outlook and multiple cities (I have about 9 loaded atm and it doesn't seem like there is a limit).

Honestly the state of weather apps and websites is pretty poor. After spending far to much time searching around one day I finally came to the conclusion that the NOAA website is far and away the best. Good weekly forecast with a detailed graph for hourly information. Why a 3rd party hasn't been able to repackage this into an even better interface I have no idea.

This. I've found it to be at least as accurate as any other source, with the benefit of graphical localized predictions of cloud cover, rain, temperature, and wind. It's especially useful when planning weekend activities in an area with various microclimates: e.g. Is the coast likely to be nice? Or should I just stay in the city? Or maybe hop across the cascades and get some long needed sunshine?

Here are a few opinions on Android apps:--on my old, slow Android phone I thought that the Weather Channel and Accuweather apps were pigs--I still like the HTC Sense weather app the best. --I should try some other apps. Any suggestions?

Obligatory: why don't you review Android Apps too!

I too love the HTC Sense app, I like the all screen clouds, rain with windshield wipers, snow filling screen, but I heard it's gone with HTC Sense on ICS (I mean full screen show of weather, not the weather app itself). I think I'll stick with Gingerbread.

I just wanted to echo some of the other comments in saying that Dark Sky is awesome.

I don't feel like the article adequately described its primary focus though: super accurate weather predictions for your exact location over the next hour. Replace the first Dark Sky paragraph with a good description of this focus, and it would make much more sense to people who haven't already heard of the app.

I've been using the SkyMotion app for a while now. It's used for short term localized rain prediction. I remember getting an umbrella with me even though it was sunny outside and I had to use it 10 minutes later...

I use the one that came installed on the OS. Give me a general indicator of the outside conditions via icon (sun - clouds - rain - lightening) - high and low average temperatures - week long outlook and multiple cities (I have about 9 loaded atm and it doesn't seem like there is a limit).

Works just fine.

The interface isn't horrible to look at either.

You must not need to know exactly when it will be raining in the next hour. DarkSky has single-handedly revolutionized outdoor activity preparedness. Sometimes we take shelter from a thunderstorm, consult DarkSky, and then exactly time our trek back to civilization according to when the next lull in the storm will happen. It truly does blow peoples' minds the first time they make use of it. Knowing that the next lull will be 7 minutes from now and last a total of 12 minutes? Priceless.

If I remember correctly, RadarScope is a $9.99 app. Do you feel it's worth that much? Lots of free apps give you radar images after all.

It's been worth it for me, at least. I live in an area where the weather can be interesting at times (Central Ohio), so having access to extensive, timely, reliable data is very nice. It's raw data though, there is some interpretation required to make the most of what is offered. If I remember correctly, the app can pull data from backup sources so it still works during a large weather events when NOAA data tends to bog down (it worked flawlessly during June's Derecho, despite the huge number of people effected). The resolution is really impressive too, and you can see dual polarization data. They've also been great with updates, retina iPad support was quick and they've added lots of features.

There very well might be free or cheaper apps out there that do a lot of the same thing, but this one has worked well for me. I actually found out about it when one of the local TV weather guys kept yelling "bring up Apple TV" during a tornado outbreak so he could show the debris ball of a tornado (with RadarScope on his iPad).

DarkSky should be paying me commission. I swear I've sold at least 10 copies on their behalf.

It really is the future of short term weather prediction. If you do any outdoor activities, DarkSky is a must have. It has revolutionized personal weather prediction and it doesn't seem that the masses have noticed yet. If you aren't using DarkSky, you're completely oblivious to accurate rain prediction. Seriously, it is absolutely revolutionary for mountain bikers like me in rainy climates. Now I know with near certainty, exactly when storms will being passing over my exactly location.

I love Dark Sky, but take it's predictions with a grain of salt. I have literally been standing under an awning in pouring rain looking down at my iPhone that says no rain for another 20 minutes.

I suspect the biggest issue for Dark Sky is that it is at the mercy of the radar data. It seems to be good at predicting how fast it will take a rain shower to arrive at and then pass your location. It seems to be much less good at predicting whether a cloud that is not yet raining will suddenly burst into rain. It probably will have a similar problem predicting when a cloud will stop raining (as opposed to a cloud that simply blows past). In the case of a rain cloud blowing past, there is more information to work with. The statistical model might be able to determine that a raining cloud of this size tends to dissipate after passing this geologic point. But with only weather radar, there will always be the problem that until there are enough droplets to show up on radar, the model has no data to work with.